Fabrication of electronic circuit elements using liquid deposition techniques is of profound interest as such techniques provide potentially low-cost alternatives to conventional mainstream amorphous silicon technologies for electronic applications such as thin film transistors (TFTs), light-emitting diodes (LEDs), radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, photovoltaics, and the like. However, the deposition and/or patterning of functional electrodes, pixel pads, and conductive traces, lines and tracks which meet the conductivity, processing, and cost requirements for practical applications have been challenging.
Solution-processable conductive inks, including metal nanoparticle inks, are of great interest for fabricating such electronic circuit elements. For example, silver nanoparticle inks are a promising class of materials for printed electronics. In this regard, fabrication of electronic circuit elements using silver nanoparticle inks has been described in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,765,025; 8,361,350; 8,324,294; 8,298,314; 8,158,032; 8,057,849; and 7,270,694, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. However, one issue encountered with metal nanoparticle inks, including silver nanoparticle inks, is a trade-off between the electrical conductivity of the sintered metal nanoparticles and their adhesion to the underlying substrate, e.g., a highly conductive layer of sintered metal nanoparticles may have very poor adhesion. Simply rubbing and/or contacting the surface of the printed metal features formed from such metal nanoparticle inks can damage the features, thus limiting their functionality and utility in the electronic devices. The issue of adhesion has been previously addressed by the adjusting the composition of the metal nanoparticle inks and/or the use of thermally curable interlayer compositions. Thermally curable interlayer compositions typically require high curing temperatures (e.g., from about 120° C. to about 150° C.) and long curing times (e.g., from about 2 hours to about 5 hours).